$80, 4 Hours, Bad Cookies: Priceless

"Britney can't be trusted. She likes to announce people's secrets in homeroom and I'm not looking forward to Monday cuz I told her on Friday that I have a crush on this one boy and I know she's gonna tell!"

My father pointed out to me later that she wouldn't have told Britney if she didn't want Britney to tell. But that's NOT what you say to an adolescent girl. You're SUPPOSED to say, "That's terrible! You're right, Monday is gonna suck!" Because she's totally looking forward, heart gripped in fear, to having her crush know she likes him so that she can find out if he likes her - and that situation, well, it sucks.

I heard about the upcoming 6th grade dance (Kelly's first) the fact that no one really knows where Faith's mother is (although they suspect New York) and Amy, at 16, is being fitted today for a bridesmaid dress for a friend's wedding and we discussed marriage (and pregnancy) and why it's not something a smart, talented girl does when she's a teenager if she can help it - no matter how badly she wants a family of her own to replace the one she should have had.

The oven has been on all day. We're up to our elbows in 3 kinds of cookie dough and a half dozen colors of frosting and we're on our 3rd round of milk and chocolate chip cookies because one can't make cookies without eating them.

"I haven't decorated cookies since I was 6," Amy says as she concentrates on the frosting. We have just discovered her special talent and poinsettas and roses are bursting forth from her. We're all a little amazed.

Kelly, who is shadowing my every move, is standing at my elbow as I open the oven. "You know," I confess. "I think I've managed to overbake every single cookie we've made today!"

We laugh because, looking around the kitchen at all the experimental cookies baked in muffin tins, the sugar cookies that swelled to 3x the size and started out as Santas but ended up as either a dinosaur or a sea horse (depending on who you ask), the cake batter splattered on the wall when Kelly asked to use the electric hand mixer and the red hots and melted chocolate on the floor, we know it's not about the cookies.

I may not have children of my own, but I have these children who are willing to make a huge creative mess of the kitchen with me. And these cousins living next door with their grandparents may have mothers who are missing and in jail, but they have me right next door to feed them hot cocoa and listen to their stories and, most importantly, encourage them to "try" to make the world's first "cube cookie" despite knowing it will simply turn into a blob that takes over the entire pan - and possibly the oven.

I can't wait to find out what happens tomorrow when that evil Britney tells "the whole world" Kelly's secret...